Parrish Smith’s debut album ‘Light, Cruel & Vain’

Light, Cru­el & Vain is his debut album, which is set to release on May 20^th 2022 on Dek­man­tel Records.

A com­pi­la­tion of​‘imper­fect music’, the record is shroud­ed in the artist’s char­ac­ter­is­tic veil of mys­tery. As always, his sound cuts and chokes yet this record offers a new, longer, lighter gulp of air. Here, Par­rish Smith bares his most pri­vate process so far: one of per­son­al trans­for­ma­tion and becom­ing a bet­ter ver­sion of oneself.

Light Cru­el & Vain was formed over a peri­od of almost three years, fol­low­ing near­ly a decade of indi­vid­ual exper­i­men­ta­tion. While LC&V reflects a process of intro­spec­tion, the project also rep­re­sents the birth and growth of a band. Each track is based on a solo idea, devel­oped in con­ver­sa­tion with con­tribut­ing musi­cians Sofi­ane Brah­mi and Javier Vivan­cos, then final­ized by the pro­duc­er. The col­lab­o­ra­tive process brought togeth­er nich­es that wouldn’t typ­i­cal­ly meet, allow­ing music to emerge that tran­scends bound­aries. In the mak­ing of LC&V, no con­ven­tion­al stu­dio ses­sions occurred; due to COVID-19, the full col­lab­o­ra­tion process was a remote affair.

Par­rish Smith’s pre­vail­ing mantra: ​‘No elit­ism, no prej­u­dices, no genre. Hyp­not­ic, tense, com­pre­hen­si­ble – a state of mind.’ best describes the LC&V sound(s). Tap­ping into all irrev­er­ent nich­es close to his heart – noise, punk, indus­tri­al, elec­tron­ic, and even pop – Par­rish Smith refus­es to fore­ground one influ­ence over anoth­er, instead lay­er­ing and warp­ing his per­son­al inter­pre­ta­tions of each.

The sin­gle, Nev­er Break Faith and album, Light, Cru­el & Vain are avail­able for pre-order here, both dig­i­tal­ly and on vinyl.